Somehow, I have an urge to buy some kind of a new computer game lately... Unfortunately, I've been out of the loop during these last few years, so I don't know what's good!

So... any interesting games you'd recommend? I like strategies / sims (SimCity, Civilization etc.), RPGs (Skyrim is awesome) and shooters (if they have an interesting storyline, like Mass Effect). Oh, and adventure games, too.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. 3 Races, 35 years of war, alliances fragment. Civil war on top of external war = pulling out the BIG guns to play with.Civ V. It's Civilization. Get the DLC and expansions for maximum fun.XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Strategy GOTY. A wonderful callback to 1993, only modernized and made amazing.

Alpha Protocol. Play as Bond, Bourne, or Bauer, or as a combination of all three. Needs more Love. Panned by every critic that loved Dragon Age 2. (Seriously; get this game, never look back; I've beaten it 5 times now and still haven't seen all the scenes or possible interactions, in part because I don't want to have to shoot a mute punk girl in the face after she tries to cap me with a pair of revolvers.)

Guild Wars 2. MMO GOTY 2012; if you like fantasy with a twist, and want something to nibble your bandwidth to death slowly, instead of sucking your bandwidth down like an opium addict at a hookers 'n Blow party, check it out.

Spec Ops: The Line. If you like FPS games, at all, and want a FPS that's not afraid to show what the effects of warfare can actually be? Go get. When you beat the area known as 'The Gate' you'll very quickly find why the game was not once made fun of by Zero Punctuation, during Yahtzee's review. A very ~VERY~ powerful game, with amazingly powerful imagery and scenes to go with it.

I love the old XCOM game. The new one may be far shinier, but in all honesty, it's not a patch on the strategy level of the original. I wish they'd simply taken the original and updated it. They chopped out way, way too much in an effort to make it more mass market appealing.

I was a hardcore fan of the old games (Well UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep) back in the 90s and I think they did a perfect job of updating the game for the modern gaming era. In my opinion, video game developers did something right for a change. I bought the old games again from GameStop's DLing client and tried playing them again. I was suffice to say very disappointed. Back in the day those games were great, but we've come a long ways in terms of graphics and sound. In my opinion, the new X-Com combines updated graphics with awesome sound while still keeping it a gem of a turn based strategy game (and you have to admit, you never see those anymore).

Like everything else, its personal opinion. I like what they tried to do, and the game itself isn't bad ... to my mind it's just not what it could have been.

Limited actions (2 per turn as opposed to the action points system of the origional)Limited team size (max of 6 as opposed to the potential 20+ you could have in latter game original)Limited research (there doesn't seem to be anywhere near the same amount of stuff)Limited locationNo base invasions (that I'm aware of at least)Far smaller maps, and the ones they have seem very much the same overall floor plan, so to speak

If someone hasn't played the original, they'll probably enjoy the game fine. XCom still remains one of my favourite games, and I still play the original. I'm a strategy gamer, I love my 4X games, so I don't need cinema quality graphics to enjoy a game.

Hell, I started on a ZX Spectrum. 48k of memory, and 5 minutes to load a game from a tape recorder. Here's one of my all time faves from back then

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. 3 Races, 35 years of war, alliances fragment. Civil war on top of external war = pulling out the BIG guns to play with.Civ V. It's Civilization. Get the DLC and expansions for maximum fun.XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Strategy GOTY. A wonderful callback to 1993, only modernized and made amazing.

Alpha Protocol. Play as Bond, Bourne, or Bauer, or as a combination of all three. Needs more Love. Panned by every critic that loved Dragon Age 2. (Seriously; get this game, never look back; I've beaten it 5 times now and still haven't seen all the scenes or possible interactions, in part because I don't want to have to shoot a mute punk girl in the face after she tries to cap me with a pair of revolvers.)

Guild Wars 2. MMO GOTY 2012; if you like fantasy with a twist, and want something to nibble your bandwidth to death slowly, instead of sucking your bandwidth down like an opium addict at a hookers 'n Blow party, check it out.

Spec Ops: The Line. If you like FPS games, at all, and want a FPS that's not afraid to show what the effects of warfare can actually be? Go get. When you beat the area known as 'The Gate' you'll very quickly find why the game was not once made fun of by Zero Punctuation, during Yahtzee's review. A very ~VERY~ powerful game, with amazingly powerful imagery and scenes to go with it.

Why would anyone think Snake snake plissken is cool anyways? Robert Neville is where it's at.

Oh yeah Snake snake plissken may have had an eye patch, a bad ass leather jacket , balls ofsteels and whitty one liners but I like my movies and video games like I like my my MonarchyPasty , pale , uninteresting , outdated and as real can be.

Fun and entertainment are overrated. Coppola is so much better then Tarantino and Scott.Screw Blade Runner , Gattaca is where it's at.

There is a new SimCity out soon or out recently which I was kinda looking forward to until EA announced that it requires you to be permenently connected to the internet to play. No offline mode, it's more of a MMORPG but with no interaction with other players. You do have the choice to set up a 'solo' game but your city will still be effected by what everyone else is doing. So one to stay away from I think.

Unfortunately that sort of thing seems to be the future of gaming, so I doubt the trend will go away.

Dude; if you didn't like my opinion, you can at least be constructive about it instead of going on an off-contextual ramble.

And, while I still have Fallout 1 and 2 installed on my comp (and New vegas in my PS3), I prefer Metro for its more realistic take on what survival post-nuclear warfare would actually be like, in part because rayguns and powered armour just make me snicker.

I haven't seen The Road, I enjoyed the first 2 Mad Max films, Escape from LA was better than Escape from New York, Robert Neville is cool, if you ever take the time to read the book, as he spends many days systematically killing vampires, becoming a true legend as 'The one that walks in sunlight',and Solid Snake is more badass than Snake Plissken, as Solid finished his final mission while he was physically in his 70's.

Coppola's works are amazing, and without him directing, many movies that you would consider 'awesome' now would never have been made, as he was the one to inspire the newer generation of Directors, such as Tarantino. Ridley Scott, however, is both amazing and insane at the same time, and he directed Alien, so he's automatically at the top of my list as one of the top 10 directors born within the 20th century.

And you can't really compare Blade Runner to Gattaca; both have their relative merits and are interesting in their own right.

For my money, The Witcher 2 is the best action RPG, ever. While you may want to play the first Witcher game, I wouldn't say it's really a requirement. It's a great game in and of itself, but the sequel is so much better even so, and the first game was quite long, so you may end up burning out before you even get to the good stuff. And it is so good. It has a brilliant story, a gritty, believable world inspired by medieval Central Europe, memorable characters, and fun combat.

I will second what was said about Spec Ops: The Line, too. If you like playing shooters with actual story, actual characters, and the closest thing I've ever seen to a proper Heart of Darkness adaptation ... get it! FarCry 3 tried to present itself as being all about insanity and going down the rabbit hole and what have you. Yeah, you want madness, go for Spec Ops.

What else can I include?

Personally, I found Bulletstorm to be an incredibly memorable FPS. If you like fart jokes. Fart jokes with impeccable timing and perfect delivery. It's not very long, but it's a few years old now, so you can probably pick it up for cheap to offset the relatively short length. While it may not have a very deep, philosophical story, it's great if you appreciate more light-hearted space opera.

Mafia 2 is getting to be a few years old, too. In my opinion a highly underrated game - probably because it doesn't really have a sandbox mode ( personally, I have no love for sandboxes - all too often it's an excuse for not having good content ). What it does have is a compelling and believable mafia story, where you see every side of it, not just gunning down bad ( or good ) guys.

Because I mention Mafia 2, I should also mention Sleeping Dogs. It's basically the Hong Kong version of Mafia 2. It doesn't really have an emphasis on guns, relying mainly on a Batman: Arkham City-like combo system for melee. It also has a really compellling, believable story. Just don't get it if you despise Hong Kong, or Hong Kong action movies. Or pork buns.

There is a new SimCity out soon or out recently which I was kinda looking forward to until EA announced that it requires you to be permenently connected to the internet to play. No offline mode, it's more of a MMORPG but with no interaction with other players. You do have the choice to set up a 'solo' game but your city will still be effected by what everyone else is doing.

From what I understand, your city is only affected by other cities that come to play with you .. friends you invite to share your territory. I believe you can buy/sell resources on a global market too.

As for the online only thing, in this day and age of effectively constant net access, it seems a lesser concern to me. An annoyance perhaps if the net connection is down, but not a critical flaw.

I'll admit to having been bitten by the bug, but Minecraft has a lot going for it: Sim-like qualities of having a little world you can control - to some extent. FPC (can you call it FPS when you use a sword?) in both Survival (solo and multi-player) and PvP multi-player modes. Boss battles if you choose to take them on. Nearly infinite exploration (especially when you consider that you can create multiple maps)

True, the graphics are a little chunky, but somehow that square-headed zombie seems just as scary when it's trying to break down your door, and the chirr of the spider will make you jump every time.

Net connection is required for creating a map (as far as I can determine), but once you have, you can play offline as well.

There's been a recent abundance of Free to Play FPS which are worth noting. The downside to these is there's little to no story, so there isn't a whole lot to be enjoyed for a single player experience. I can vouch for the following.

Tribes: Ascend - Features a ski mechanic for fast paced fire fights and good times.

Blacklight: Retribution - A near future setting with a more MMS feel to it, and some hacking mechanics.

Hawken - A mech shooter. Has a very immersive feel to the cock pit.

Planet Side 2 - A MMO sci fi shooter. Just tried it out last night. Kinda just throws you in, but it's what open world PVP ought to be in a MMO.

For the epitome of horror atmosphere... Amnesia: The Dark Descent. First person survival horror with puzzle solving and a chilling story. A sequel is in development Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Haven't tried it but on my wish list...Spec Ops: The Line a MMS that has been acclaimed for it's story and moral dilemmas. Typically I don't want to touch MMS games with a 10 foot pole being held by another person, but the reviews have intrigued me as it deviates from the typical patriotic chest thumping nature of the genre.

dammit, oniya beat me to it. I recently discovered the rabbit hole that is minecraft as well.vanilla minecraft is ok, but adding the mods ''buildcraft, industrialcraft, and redpower'' have really upped the game of me.

My friend created a new world to goof off in over the weekend.Friday - Build a motte and bailey to defend ourselves from monsters. Find food, coal, iron, and diamondsSaturday - build a farm, raid a tunnel fissure in the ground (kill all mobs, put up torches to prevent respawns), find food and diamonds.Sunday - build a quarry (borehole machine that needs diamonds) and start automating the mining process. Start building generators and pumps to collect water, lava, and oil. Start building more efficient machines. Layout plans for semi-automated farms and wiring up the house with electricity.

and that is only the fun we are having with the three big mods... ''Feed the Beast'' encompasses those 3 and a whole lot more, and addsquests and directives that can take upwards of 100+ hours to complete... even when you know what you are doing... @.@

best 30$ I spent in a while.

Also.. Mechwarrior Online - Giant stompy robits that shoot lazers, dakka and missiles. Where Hawken is the ''call of duty'' of mech combat, Mechwarrior Online requires good teamwork to be successful. It is a thinking person's shooter, even though there are a bunch of scrub players who treat it otherwise. Mistakes are real and costly in a match. The running gag is that MWO is in open beta, but they have the purchase plans up and running, and the program and networks have been as solid as they have ever been. I would only recommend this if you have a solid group of friends to play (or a bunch of Penny Arcadians from another forum) because as good as any person is solo, you cannot win matches by yourself. Plus it is way more fun talking and coordinating with people. I would dare say that 3 people working together could take on 6 or 7 people that dont talk to their teammates.

FUCK YES. Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are rightly considered two of the most atmospheric FPS made in the last decade, and Bioshock Infinite is coming out soon.

A question, then: from what I've heard, this game is about an underwater failed utopia, with a genetic civil war and a crazed scientist being the main baddie. Oh, and that in the end, player has to decide whether he saves the survivors or not. If I know all that, would there much more to discover? As I said earlier, I play shooters for story.

Another question, unrelated to Bioshock: are there old-school, point-and-click adventure games being made anymore? If so, are there any good titles?

Also, are there any interesting games in the vein of Silent Hill? Again, I'm interested in the story aspect, not necessary the monster-killing aspect?

And what about RPGs? As I mentioned, I loved Skyrim. I know of Witcher. Anything else?

Finally... any good games in the vein of Civilization, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Ascendancy?

A question, then: from what I've heard, this game is about an underwater failed utopia, with a genetic civil war and a crazed scientist being the main baddie. Oh, and that in the end, player has to decide whether he saves the survivors or not. If I know all that, would there much more to discover? As I said earlier, I play shooters for story.

That's not really an entirely accurate summary. And even if you knew the basics and the ending, it's worth playing. There's heaps of philosophy and politics mixed in, as well as a thoroughly disturbing atmosphere. The sequel is worth playing, too, in my opinion. And there's another one coming soon that looks awesome!

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Also, are there any interesting games in the vein of Silent Hill? Again, I'm interested in the story aspect, not necessary the monster-killing aspect?

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was mentioned earlier. Rumored to be the scariest game ever. I wouldn't know, I'm too scared to play it.

If that doesn't do it for you, I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Wake. It's a horror game in the vein of Stephen King ( more psychological than anything, without the jump scares and icky monsters - but still plenty of frightening moments! ). It also contains plenty of references to things like Twin Peaks. I haven't played the PC version, so I'm not sure how the controls are with a mouse and keyboard - but it's definitely worth checking out if you like the things mentioned above.

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Finally... any good games in the vein of Civilization, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Ascendancy?

If you like 4X games, you may want to look into Endless Space. A great space empire simulator, that isn't entirely too difficult to grasp.

A question, then: from what I've heard, this game is about an underwater failed utopia, with a genetic civil war and a crazed scientist being the main baddie. Oh, and that in the end, player has to decide whether he saves the survivors or not. If I know all that, would there much more to discover? As I said earlier, I play shooters for story.

Hemingway hit the nail on the head; there's a ~lot~ more than Rapture just being a failed Utopia, as the theme in all of the bioshock games once you peel past the veneer of the art deco and splicing and throwing lightning from your fingertips is a condemnation of extremes; In the first game, it shows what true Ayn Rand-ianism would actually cause. In the second, the underlying theme shows the horrifying part of extreme collectivism (That and you're the world's angriest daddy trying to get his daughter back). Infinite, the newest one, is a rather clear poke at extreme nationalism (and a whole pile of other 'isms' on top of it, like racism). You owe it to yourself to check out the Bioshock series; It has a ~lot~ of depth; and not just in Rapture.

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Finally... any good games in the vein of Civilization, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Ascendancy?

Civilization IV and V, obviously. Sins of a Solar Empire has gained a deserved reputation of being the RTS equivalent of Civ, in space, as a 'short' game can take upwards of 4-6 hours to beat, and it does tend to have the 'just one more turn' effect, until you realize that it has no turns, so, freed of the obligation, you happily keep going keep going on building your arsenal of Novalith cannons to bombard enemy planets with intersolar orbital nuclear cannons that sterilize planets in 2-3 shots. Or, at least, that's what I do.

I haven't yet played anything about Endless Space, but it sounds interesting.

If you have an Xbox controller to use with your PC, you might look into picking up Dark Souls.

I've heard there are mods to make mouse + keyboard usable with the game, but honestly it's better to just have a controller for it, so if you don't have one I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

It's an action RPG with a relatively steep learning curve but quite a satisfying style of gameplay (after you get past the initial hurdles and stop getting frustrated by a few buggy mechanics and poor game design choices).

And a fun 'fact', Ken Levine (the creator of Bioshock and the lead of Infinite) has been said to disavow Bioshock 2.

Only because Irrational games (Levine's Studio) didn't make Bioshock 2; Instead, Arkane Studios (the madmen that made Dishonored) did, while still under the 2K games label. So, while Bioshock 2 may not be 'canon' according to Levine, It's canon according to everyone that's played it and finds its Anti-Extreme Collectivisim Message to be just as relevant as Bioshock 1's Anti-Extreme Objectivism Message.

Tl;Dr, Bioshock 2 takes a good firm poke at 'Creating Utopia through pure altruism', aka. 'Pure' Collectivism as a philosophy, just as Bioshock took a good firm poke at if a nation built entirely on the principles of Objectivism (aka. Ayn Randianism, aka. 'Fuck you all got mine'ism)

Only because Irrational games (Levine's Studio) didn't make Bioshock 2; Instead, Arkane Studios (the madmen that made Dishonored) did, while still under the 2K games label. So, while Bioshock 2 may not be 'canon' according to Levine, It's canon according to everyone that's played it and finds its Anti-Extreme Collectivisim Message to be just as relevant as Bioshock 1's Anti-Extreme Objectivism Message.

Well, it doesn't really matter because Infinite takes place before Rapture was even made.